The Friends of Kingsmead Field and Canterbury District Biodiversity Network are raising money for celebrated street artist, Mark Anthony, to paint a mural of beavers in the River Stour at the Canterbury Riverside centre in Kingsmead, overlooking the Great Stour river. The mural will feature two beavers, one on land and one in the river.
Mark Anthony is a London-based artist who specialises in painting stunning murals of endangered wildlife and reintroduced native species. His works in Canterbury include the bison mural at the Gulbenkian Theatre at the University of Kent and the heath fritillary butterfly mural opposite the Westgate Towers which form part of Canterbury’s Wild Walls trail.
Beavers are now returning across the UK after having been hunted to extinction in the 16th century. Beavers are considered ‘nature’s engineers’ as they create new wetland habitats and help restore rivers and floodplains to a more natural state. They are now a protected species under UK law.
Canterbury is very fortunate to be one of the few cities in the country to have a population of wild beavers living along the river in the centre of the city. As Kingsmead is the focal point of beaver activity in the city, the Friends of Kingsmead Field are keen to celebrate the return of this unique animal and to raise awareness of the important role that they play in the ecology of our chalk stream.
If we can raise £4000 by 15 September 2025, the mural will be painted during this year’s festival of the river Stour, the Great Stour Riverfest (21 – 28 September), and will be unveiled on World Rivers Day (Sunday 28 September). Please donate to our fundraising campaign today to help us to attain this target and make the beaver mural a reality!
We are very grateful to Whitefriars and the Canterbury Business Improvement District (BID) for their support for this project.
